Honouring achievements at Speech Night & Speech Day

Speech Night (Years 5 to 12) and Speech Day (Kindergarten to Year 4) are not just occasions to celebrate students and acknowledge staff. At Santa Sabina they are also events which feature an ex-student as guest of honour. In both these events in late 2022, our entire community gathered for insights and inspiration from the Santa Sabina family, on and off campus.

Our Speech Night returned to its full glory this year in a Sydney city location, drawing the line under the recent years’ COVID-affected adaptations of the annual event. In the stunning location of the State Theatre in Market Street we honoured our highest achieving students in a colourful celebration. The agenda of prize giving and formal speeches was punctuated by exciting performances from the Senior Hip Hop team, Chamber Orchestra, Brass Ensemble and Chamber Choir and Bella Merlino of Year 12 recreated her award-winning speech, ‘It’s time we call it for what it is’.

Awards were presented for scholarly endeavour, creative and critical thinking, outstanding academic achievement, leadership and service. Top awards for Year 12, the General Proficiency Award and the Sr Sheila Flynn OP Award, were presented to Joanna Benedict and Sienna Ters respectively.

We were inspired by speeches from our College Principal, Paulina Skerman, and Chair of the Board, Steven Graham, and were enriched and entertained by our Guest of Honour Julie de Fina of the Class of 2000.

In her humourous speech, Ms de Fina regaled us with tales from her College days and her amusing aversion to certain sports and to visiting Tallong. Nonetheless, she understood the attractions of such opportunities to her fellow students, but soon found her own fervour in our Black Box Theatre. Here and in Drama classes, she found her passion and her tribe. She told us it was her drama training here that led to her successful career in television comedy and drama.

Ms de Fina is a creator, screenwriter, story producer and showrunner who has worked on numerous critically acclaimed television series. Her ABC comedy series Aftertaste was nominated for Best Comedy Program at both the 2021 and 2022 AACTA Awards as well as winning the Silver Logie Award for Most Popular Comedy Program.

She is currently working on a series for Amazon Studios and BBC Australia which will go into production in mid-2023, and she is also adapting the award-winning novel Kokomo into a limited drama series on which she will also serve as showrunner and Executive Producer.

Speech Day for Prep to Year 4 was another joyful celebration of the younger students’ achievements across 2022 and was held on campus